I have found some awesome small time breeders, and the first way I found them was while researching the proper care of these animals on this site, and the ones that were giving courteous help to newbies or answering my questions were people I found interest in, and I would check out there website and see if they appeared to have or had produced the quality of animals that I was looking for. Then upon meeting those requirements I would check out there rep on here and/or fauna. Then upon contacting them about snakes, alot was that gut feeling you get from people, and the questions you ask are whats important to you. If I call them with a question are they gunna give me an answer or are they gunna ignore my calls as soon as they listen to my message and realize that its not just about selling another animal. Will they give you insight to projects that you might wanna look into in the future. Basically are they seeing me as a dollar bill or a friend. Then I also look at there locality... its awesome to be able to go and hold lavender albinos and blue eyed lucies, and all the new stuff that you cant afford at that point in life. Once they meet those standards I have narrowed down 90 percent of my purchases to 4 breeders, and at any given time I know that I can drop a check in the mail to them to hold an animal for me. And they also realize you are the type of person that they are willing to make deals for, whether its sending a breedable female with you next purchase or throwing in free shipping or whatever it may be.
Reptile shows are also good to find local people and be able to do the face to face interaction to see if they are the type of people you want to work with.
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